I don’t think it’s any big secret that I find preseason polls to be a complete waste. That goes doubly for pre-preseason polls, like this one from ESPN’s “College Football Live”.

Still, if that either reflects or shapes public opinion on how the early season rankings go, it’s evidence that if you’re Mark Richt and your goal is to make your team nationally relevant again, it’s hard to come up with a better schedule than Georgia’s 2011 one. Richt’s team comes out of the gate facing the number five and number eight (yeah, South Carolina at eight is a major stretch) teams on that list and play both without leaving the state. Win those two and the Dawgs should find themselves sitting top twelve or so nationally. The next part of the schedule is manageable, leading into a bye week before the Cocktail Party. After that, it’s three straight home games and the finale at Tech.

In short, it’s a national championship schedule. The question is whether the team can live up to the schedule.

It’s not hard to see why we have such near suicidal reactions to 3 and 6 point losses, we talk ourselves into a team that finished with a losing record the year before having a “national championship schedule” the next year. We all tend to get a little too high on good news/wins and too low on bad news/losses, the truth is usually in the middle.

Eh last year was an easy schedule too, after the last few years i’ve stopped expecting much from Georgia. i don’t think we’ll be relevant again until 2014 at the earliest. one year for richt to get fired then at least another for the new guy to get his feet wet in a best case scenario. i hope uga makes me eat crow because i really want to see richt succeed but i just don’t see it happening

We’ve got a national championship schedule, but we don’t have a national championship team. I don’t believe that we’ve got receivers who are going to step up. We’ve got a team that can win a lot of games, but beyond that… we’ll see.

The best possible scenario is repeating what bama did in 2008. The auburn comparison is flawed because we have no cam newton. There are still a lot of questions about this team but if they are playing well there isn’t anyone on the schedule that is insurrmountable. Playing the west champ would be the toughest game if we were fortunate enough to get there.

It’s all about the run game, really on both sides of the ball. TK is every bit as good as Darvin Adams. Adams was wide open most of the time because of the play action. If we can do the same w/ Crowell and Ealey, we’ll succeed.

And we have to stop the run. Last year’s schedule was NOT that easy. It looked it on the outside, but it was a strange year in the conference. We played the best team in the East on the road (Fake USC). We played 2 Western teams that we thought would be weak (Arky & Miss St.) but ended up as much better than any team in the East…and we played the wrong one on the road. If we’d have played Arky on the road and Miss. St. in Athens, we probably beat Miss. St. We had to travel a billion miles to play Colorado while we were reeling from the AJ hangover. Oh yeah…AJ!!!!! And we had to play the best team in the nation in their house.

This year, the best teams on our schedule are Boise St., South Carolina, Miss St., Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, and Tech. 5 of 7 we play in the state of Georgia. Only one of those 7 will feel like a true road game in Knoxville as half of Bobby Dodd will be red. We’ve got a shot.

I love Mark Richt and I love our Dawgs. I want them both to be successful. I want desperately to believe we can have a nine win or better season. But the fact of the matter is we have reached the point where nothing matters but the W’s. It doesn’t matter how fantastic our recruiting class is. It makes no difference how tough our S&C program is. Who cares how big our guys look? We have to win. Period. For Richt, his job is literally on the line. There will be no moral victories. Improvement, even significant improvement will mean precisely nothing without wins. Though I come here everyday, it borders on pointless to even talk about this or anything else for that matter. It has to happen on the field. We can do nothing but wait. I hate it. I sure wish Michael Adams had gotten the NCAA job. At least then we could entertain ourselves with that train wreck while we wait for the season to start.

Quote Of The Day

“It brings back a great Bulldog running back in Thomas who has NFL playing experience and has had success as a college coach at multiple schools. He also inherits a position that has been built to an elite level by Bryan. And it gives Bryan the opportunity to return to coaching the position he played and the one where he cut his teeth serving as a graduate assistant under wide receiver coach John Eason here at UGA. It also provides him with a new experience as a passing game coordinator.” -- Mark Richt, AB-H, 2/16/15